


The Dangers of Paperwork

by Deannie



Series: Women on the Border [12]
Category: The Real Ghostbusters
Genre: Community: hc_bingo, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-16
Updated: 2016-09-16
Packaged: 2018-08-15 09:47:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8051611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deannie/pseuds/Deannie
Summary: Janine should be more careful with her filing. Slimer should be more careful, period.





	The Dangers of Paperwork

**Author's Note:**

> For the hc_bingo prompt: minor injury. Part of my Women on the Border series

It was dark and she was hot. Boiling. 

Why was it so  _ hot _ ?

“Janine? Can you hear me?” Egon. He sounded so worried. Worried about her? 

Now she felt hot in a different way.

“Janine, we’re working on the problem. Just hold on.” Like he was? Wait, was Egon actually holding her  _ hand _ !? Fever or not, this was a  _ good _ dream. She sank into it a little deeper, but his voice became shrill and the world got darker. “Janine! No!”

Things were swimming in a soft blue light and Janine floated with them, farther from his frantic voice.

So much trouble over a little paper cut…

*******

“Hey Janine,” Peter called from his office. “Get me a cup of coffee?”

“I don’t get paid enough to get you coffee, Dr. Venkman,” she told him, matter-of-fact and even. There was a way to handle Peter Venkman, and getting mad at him wasn’t it. Except for those times when it was.

“You don’t have to get paid at all,” he reminded her. It was an empty threat and he knew it. They’d be lost without her. She tidied the papers in her hands—bills to a few of their clients who were overdue enough to get on her bad side—and hissed as one of the edges caught her finger. “Ow!”

“You don’t get workman’s comp!” Peter called over the wall. 

“Why not?” she asked. “I got the paper cut doing  _ your _ job.”

“Oh, paper cut—ow!” Peter sympathized immediately. One of the things about him—he could be sweet when he wasn’t trying so hard to be himself.

Ecto-1 pulled into the garage right then, Slimer vaulting over the lights on top and heading straight for her. “Jannnniiiinnnnnne!” he called, terrified by something and wanting his usual comfort.

“Slimer, no!” Ray called, halfway out the passenger door before Winston even put the old hearse in park.

“It’s fine, Ray,” she said, though it kind of wasn’t when Slimer slammed into her and knocked her back in her chair. “Slimer, you smell!”

Ray and Egon were right next to her, staring at her. “What?” she asked, feeling just a little frightened at their intensity.

“Janine, are you all right?” Egon asked, pulling out his PKE meter and running it over the slime that covered her dress and hands. “Do you feel strange?”

“Only because you’re staring at me like that,” she said. Though come to think of it, her hand, where she’d just cut herself on that bill, was starting to burn.

“What’s going on?” Peter asked seriously, suddenly right behind her. 

“Oh, man,” Winston said as he walked up to stand next to Ray. “She okay?”

“And I repeat,” Peter said, a little more forcefully, “what is going on?”

Egon was still gripping his PKE meter and staring at her like he was terrified (but why would he be scared for  _ her _ ?), and Ray looked worried and guilty.

“The ghost we were after had a special slime. It ran over a couple of rats while we were capturing it,” Ray explained. “They started convulsing and died. Slimer says the ghost has bad blood.”

“Baddd bloooodddd, Janine,” Slimer confirmed, hovering over them all, but staying away. “Sorry!”

Janine felt herself getting hot. “You slimed me with it, didn’t you, Slimer?” she accused, though she didn’t feel like convulsing at all. Hitting someone, sure, but not convulsing.

“I don’t think so,” Egon said, taking a deep breath as the meter showed him something that calmed him down. “Slimer had almost none of the slime on him, Janine,” he explained, no longer looking scared and intense. “And you show no signs that you’ve been affected psychically. We were simply concerned that even the little he had on him could cause someone distress.”

“You were  _ supposed _ to come straight downstairs with me and get cleaned off, Slimer,” Ray scolded the little green ghost. 

“Sorry, Ray!” Slimer said, floating toward the stairs down to the basement. He looked back at Janine as he went. “Sorry, Janine!”

“Just take a shower, Slimer,” she replied, shaking her injured hand. She looked down to see the hand covered in slime. The disgusting stuff had gotten into the cut, and it was red and itchy. “I think I should do the same.”

Egon came close, and she got a little overheated. “I think that’s a good idea, Janine,” he said, a shade of worry still in his tone. “I’m sure it’s nothing.”

“I’m soaked,” she disagreed, moving around the hovering men and feeling a little dizzy from Egon’s presence. “Being slimed by Slimer is never ‘nothing.’” She stumbled as she headed for the stairs and Winston caught her elbow and held her up. He looked strange and plastic, and he swayed a little in the breeze she couldn’t feel.

“Janine, you don’t look so good,” Peter said behind her.

She wanted to argue, but the world was buzzing. Had it been buzzing before?

“Winston, get Ray!” Egon called urgently. Then  _ he _ was holding her up, and that was instantly better and worse, because she felt more secure but the world was even hotter. He was  _ really _ tall.

Why was it so hot?

“Just relax, Melnitz,” Peter promised, sounding worried and sweet and not himself at all. “We’ll take care of you.”

She looked over at him, bothered to see that he was a strange shade of blue, and wavy around the edges.

“It’s just a paper cut,” she argued.

And then her body completely changed its mind about convulsing and she was gone.

********

“It’ll be okay, Egon,” Ray was saying. He sounded so earnest and worried.

A cloth was placed carefully on her forehead and over her eyes, soft and cool and wet. It felt good. She’d been sleeping a long time, it felt like. All her muscles ached.

“That was far too close,” Egon replied, voice tight with pain. Was he hurt? She didn’t like it when Egon was hurt. “Unacceptably close.”

“Sit down before you fall down, Spengler,” Peter said mildly. The tone told her that something was wrong, and she struggled unsuccessfully to open her eyes. Her head hurt worse than the morning after her nephew’s bar mitzvah. What was wrong with her? 

“I’m fine, Peter,” Egon lied. 

“You would’ve been, if you weren’t trying to play knight in ectoplasmic armor.”

_ Ectoplasmic armor, huh?  _ Janine thought about moving her hand to take the cloth off her head, but the impulse didn’t connect to her muscles. Instead they just twitched, and she growled a little in frustration.

“Janine?” Egon responded instantly, intense and worried again. Just like he had been in the garage when…

“Was I almost killed by a paper cut?” she asked blandly. Because that would be just like her life now.

The cloth was removed from her face, and she looked up to find all four of the boys ringing Egon’s…  _ Was she in Egon’s bed!? _

“You still don’t get workman’s comp, Melnitz,” Peter snarked, though without his usual obnoxious drawl. In fact, he looked pitifully glad she was awake.

She closed her eyes. Brain damage. Must be. “Whatever. At this point, suing seems like a better option.”

“Janine, how are you feeling?” Egon asked quietly. She opened her eyes again and focused on the man holding her hand. He had a huge bruise running across his face and his nose was broken. She smiled.  _ My knight. _

“I’m fine, Egon,” she told him. She wasn’t even lying. Much.

“You will be,” Winston corrected. “Gonna take a while, though.” 

She luxuriated in the feeling of  _ Egon’s sheets! _ “I’m not going anywhere,” she promised.

Egon gripped her hand softly as she drifted back toward slumber. 

“No, Janine,” he agreed. “You’re not.”

She went back to sleep with a smile on her face.

**********   
the end


End file.
